CITE THIS NOTEBOOK: Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter during the last week of February 2023 by Jeff Bryant. Wolfram Community FEB 23 2023.
During the last week of February, 2023, Venus and Jupiter will come close to each other in the evening sky after sunset. They will come closest on the evening of March 1, 2023 with an angular separation of only about 0.5° against the evening sky. This is not an occultation, the planets will still be easily separated with the naked eye, but still a nice sight to observe.
AstroAngularSeparation,,
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To simulate their gradual approach over the final week of February I define an appropriate date range:
dr=DateRange,,;
Finally I construct the graphical scene. I’ve centered the view on the position of Venus on Feb 21 at 7:30 PM local time. The western horizon can be seen as the gray horizontal line. As time progresses, Venus (white) quickly gets higher and catches up to slower moving Jupiter (pink). Both closely follow the path of the ecliptic, shown as a yellow line. The celestial equator is shown in blue.
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loc=Here;
initframe="Horizon",loc,,"Refraction"->None;
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AstroGraphicsWithjpos=AstroPosition,{"Horizon",loc,#},vpos=AstroPosition,{"Horizon",loc,#},dstring=DateString[#,{"MonthNameShort"," ","DayShort"}],{PointSize[.005],White,Point[vpos],Pink,Point[jpos],White,Text[dstring,vpos,{-2,0}],Text[dstring,jpos,{2,0}]}&/@dr,AstroReferenceFrame->initframe,ImageSize->{650,450},AstroCenter->AstroPosition,initframe,AstroBackground->AstroStyling[{"BlackSky","ShowSolarSystemObjects"->False}],AstroGridLines->
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As a special item of note, on the night of Feb 22, the Moon was right beside Jupiter (ignored in the above example):
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date=;
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specialframe={"Horizon",loc,date};
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AstroGraphicsWithjpos=AstroPosition,specialframe,vpos=AstroPosition,specialframe,mpos=AstroPosition,specialframe,{PointSize[.005],White,Point[vpos],Pink,Point[jpos],Lighter[Blue,.5],Disk[mpos,.5Degree],White,Text["Venus",vpos,{-2,0}],Text["Jupiter",jpos,{-2,0}],Text["Moon",mpos,{3,0}]},AstroReferenceFrame->initframe,ImageSize->{650,450},AstroCenter->AstroPosition,initframe,AstroBackground->AstroStyling[{"BlackSky","ShowSolarSystemObjects"->False}],AstroGridLines->
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Weather permitting, try to go outside and enjoy this sight for yourself!